Elliott Hundley’s densely articulated works individually fluctuate between painting, collage, photography, and sculpture. Incorporating a diverse spectrum of materials––from photographs he takes of performers on elaborate sets, to flea market objects and newsstand clippings––he employs content-rich resources that are psychologically dense to form a kind of decentralized cultural map. Often referring to Greek plays, Hundley is not only interested in how those particular narratives are representations of our shared subconscious, but also how the recordings of those plays, for which there were never perfect versions or final drafts, physically and mentally manifest in perpetual reinterpretations.

Elliott Hundley (born 1975) conceives of his exhibitions as theatrical environments--dense narrative landscapes populated by actors. By interspersing his monumental collages with carefully placed sculptural groupings, Hundley creates immersive environments that restage and animate the classical texts that are his sources. These epic installations collapse historical and narrative time, placing equal emphasis on classical mythology, art history and the socio-political conditions of the present. Published for one of Hundley's most significant museum exhibitions to date, this catalogue is the first sustained treatment of the artist's work. Building on Hundley's previous investigations of Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae, it examines the artist's effort to elaborate a critical relationship between classical literary sources and contemporary society. Essays by Christopher Bedford, poet Anne Carson and art historian Richard Meyer explicate the many facets of Hundley's sources and processes.